The Definition of Insanity
by tala-hiding
Summary: How can Brennan learn how to love when everyone she's ever loved has left her? Booth tries to show her that what they have is here to stay. Set somewhere in Season 5, after the 100th episode but before the season finale. ON HIATUS
1. A Long Delayed Conversation

**Title**: The Definition of Insanity

**Rating**: T

**Disclaimer**: _Bones_ belongs to 20th Century Fox, Hart Hanson, Stephen Nathan, and the producers, writers, and actors of the show. I make no profit in writing this story.

**Summary**: After the fallout of Booth's confession and Brennan's refusal, how can the partners return back to where they were before?

**Spoilers**: After the 100th episode, but before the S5 finale.

**Author's Notes**: Oh please come back! I promise I won't bite! I kinda needed to get this off my chest since I'm stuck in a rut with _Learning Curves_ as of the moment. I promise I'll try and have at least a chapter up before I leave for Christmas break, but in the meantime, here's something to whet your appetite. I'm planning this one as a three-parter, so the last chapter should be up by tomorrow or the day after.

Again, this is un-beta'ed, so all mistakes are my own. :)

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_I wish I wasn't so fragile_

'_Cos I know that I'm not easy to handle_

_-_ "Fall Apart Today", Schuyler Fisk

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They were seated at the table they had already claimed - at least in theory - for over four years. The case they were working on was at a standstill, and Booth had insisted that Brennan take a break and have an early dinner with him. Now they were simply polishing off the last of their meals, talking about the idea of reincarnation. "Nietzsche would call it the concept of eternal recurrence - that the universe and everything in it has happened before and will happen again, and will continue to happen - thereby rendering your idea of a one true love as something that does not exist," said Brennan decisively.

He swiped a fry from the rapidly dwindling pile on the plate between them. "Nope. We're only given one life to live, Bones. This is all we've got."

"But if you think about it Booth, human history is just a series of patterns. Kingdoms and governments rise and fall. Revolutions happen, we win or we lose, and the narrative is still picked up by the survivors." She dipped her fry in the tomato ketchup and chewed thoughtfully. "Not to mention the theory that history is only written by the victor."

He waggled his finger at her. "Face it Bones: the only reason you hold on to that idea is because you're scared of regretting something, that you've made a mistake."

Her face softened. "I never said I was infallible, Booth. I'm only human."

He gave her a grin, humming under his breath. His lips were slightly shiny from the salt on the fries, his tie unknotted and his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. "I know, Bones. I was just pulling your leg."

Brennan made a face at him. "Einstein said something similar to Nietzsche, you know. He said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. If he and Nietzsche are correct, then it begs the question of why we do the things we do, when we know we've done them before and nothing has changed."

Booth shrugged, muscles rippling underneath the thin fabric of his white dress shirt. "Because we still find enjoyment in them. I mean, if you think about it, we always share fries in the diner. How come you never get your own plate?"

"Because - " she said, gleefully stealing the last french fry under his nose - "I enjoy them."

"Precisely. Why do you still keep on doing your cases in Limbo?"

"Don't call it Limbo!"

"Fine, _Bone Storage_. Why do you still insist on working the cases of these dead soldiers and whatnot when you know perfectly well you'll never finish them? Because you believe that these people deserve a name, and a face, and they deserve to be interred with honor and respect. You can repeat all the philosophical mumbo jumbo you know to me in order to justify your work, but you know, deep down inside, you, Temperance Brennan, do the work you do because you are the best in your field and most importantly, you enjoy it."

They held each others' gaze over an empty plate of fries. Outside, the sky was rapidly darkening, streaks of pink and purple branching out against clouds and rooftops. Evening traffic hummed in the distance - husbands and wives returning home from work, university students rushing to and from classes, men and women preparing for a dinner, a date, a movie to watch curled up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. And yet their universe was narrowed to this diner, this booth, this chair and that, and the sticky-salty taste of fried potatoes still clinging to their lips and tongues like the memory of that first kiss, long ago, that first big bang.

Brennan was the one who broke off first, turning her eyes to the concentric circles of moisture dotting the plasticine surface of the diner table. Her water glass had condensed, beads of water clinging stubbornly to the glass surface. Her fingers idly traced the circles on the table, trying to maintain a semblance of control. It was happening more often now - these odd discussions that seemed to circle back to that night at the Hoover. _I don't have your kind of open heart_, she'd said, trying to keep her voice from cracking, her heart from breaking. The heart is a muscle, it can't break. But she remembered feeling as though pincers had reached into her chest cavity, taking the fragile metaphorical heart from inside her body and applying sufficient pressure to crack it into a million little pieces.

"Bones?" Booth's voice was laced with infinite gentleness. "Are you okay?"

She looked up. There was nothing but patience in his dark brown eyes. Patience. Understanding. And if she was feeling a bit emotional (and she was), she could almost see a glimmer of love in his gaze. She took a deep breath. "I'm fine, Booth."

He leaned back against his chair, his hands behind his head. "Great. I thought you were having some kind of attack there for awhile."

She rolled her eyes at his glibness. "You'd know perfectly well if I was in some kind of medical emergency, Booth. You're my medical proxy, after all."

There - his dark brown eyes widened, his jaw went slack, and he pulled himself up from the casual pose he had appropriated only mere seconds before. "I am?"

"Yes." She kept her voice level, calm, as though she was discussing kerf marks on a bone. "After all, we are both in dangerous careers, especially when we're in the field, so I figured that, as my partner, you should have access to my medical files. My father and Russ are both in North Carolina, which means that it would take considerable time for them to get to the city; on the other hand, you only live a few blocks away from me, and therefore have a better chance of reaching me if a medical emergency arises."

"Well, I'm glad you trust me with something as important as your health, Bones."

"I'd trust you with anything, Booth."

There was a shadow of bitterness in his voice as he said, "But not with your heart."

She knew they would circle back to this. The past few weeks had been nothing but awkward overtures, like a particularly unsatisfying one-night stand. There was a part of her that wanted to run away again, to distance herself from this emotional mess, to remove that part of her that was inexplicably drawn to Booth like a moth to a flame. She ran the tip of her tongue over her suddenly-dry lips.

"Never mind, Bones." Like a mask slipping into place, Booth gave her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Forget I said anything."

She cocked her head to one side, trying to gauge the best way to repair this - to repair them. This was more than just trying to put together what was torn asunder; more than just the inability to live a purposeless life or to take on responsibility for someone else's decisions. This was... a chasm, unfolding, the distance between them growing larger and larger until she could barely see his shadow on the other side. But she was unsure as to how to proceed. Most of her social cues were taken from Booth. Except that now, he was holding himself back. _You're on your own, Temperance_.

"I... " She hesitated, hoping that she was saying the right things. "I think we need to talk, Booth."

He shook his head. "Not right now, Bones. Not right now."

**A/N: Did that whet your appetite? Onwards to Part 2! Reviews are welcome, and are much appreciated (and will probably encourage me to write quicker.)**


	2. A Much Needed Discussion About Dreams

**A/N: Please see the previous chapter for the usual disclaimers, et al.**

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Sleep was difficult that night - Brennan tossed and turned in her bed, twisting the sheets around her bare knees, her hair tickling the sensitive skin at her nape. She flitted in and out of her dreams -

_She was at a wedding, the strobe lights glittering in the darkness, strains of an unfamiliar waltz surrounding her. She was wearing a heavy dress, weighed down by beads, flowers entwined around her wrists and ankles. She turned helplessly on the dance floor, panic rising in her throat as she begged the others to free her from her arboreal bonds. Faces pulled into focus - friends, family, even her high school classmates - all clapping and laughing as if nothing was wrong. She whirled around, searching for Booth. He could help her. But he was there, in the corner, dapper in his navy three-piece suit, dancing with a blond woman with wavy tresses, his arms around her waist, ignoring Brennan's pleas as it spilled from her lips -_

_- and then she was back in the car, buried underground, except that it wasn't Hodgins beside her, it was Cam, and the pathologist was bleeding out on the upholstery of the car, her pallid face sweaty as the oxygen was slowly depleted from the car. "I knew it," Cam said, her voice ragged. "He cared about you more than he cared about me."_

"_No, no, no," Brennan cried, struggling to reach the back seat. She had a first aid kit in the car, she could staunch Cam's wounds until Booth managed to find them. But it seemed that the back seat of the car moved farther and farther away from her grasp, until she was left clutching empty space, Cam's accusing dark eyes boring into her -_

_- and then she was in Booth's bed, her skin flush with sweat and lust, as his lips traversed her body, his hands memorizing every inch of her. She was moaning out his name as he positioned himself above her. She reached up, wanting to pull him closer, to feel him flush against her naked body. But her fingers touched something heated, wet. She looked up to see a bloodstain spreading across his chest, like a puddle of oil, spiderwebs spinning out of control, and he was looking at her with dark eyes as the bullet wound gaped open and he could see his heart -_

"NO, NO, BOOTH NO!" She sat up in bed, wildly clawing her way past the blankets as she gasped for air. Her heartbeat hammered wildly in her chest, as though an entire tribal dance was taking place inside her ribcage. She grabbed fistfuls of her blanket, trying to slow down the panicked rhythm of her heart. _Deep, cleansing breaths, Temperance_. She could still feel the crowding darkness of the buried car, the sticky residue of Booth's blood underneath her fingernails.

Without even thinking about it, she grabbed the phone off the nightstand and pressed "1" on the speed dial. It rang three times before someone picked it up.

" 'lo?" His voice was low, muffled, tinged with sleep.

"Booth." _He's alive. He's alive. He's here. He's alive._

"Bones?"

"I - " She was at a loss for words. What does one say after having nightmares about their partner?

"You had a bad dream." It was a statement, not a question.

She nodded mutely, trying to fight back the sudden onslaught of tears. She never cried over the phone - not when she received the phone call from the sheriff's department informing her of her parents' abandoned car somewhere outside Ohio; not when her case worker called to tell her she was being moved to yet another foster home; certainly not when she learned of her partner's (thankfully fake) death. "Booth, it's okay, I'm - "

He cut her off. "I'm coming over."

"It's four in the morning."

"I have to pick you up at seven anyway. You don't mind me being there a bit early, do you?"

The prickling at the back of her eyes started up again. "No, I don't mind at all."

Thirty minutes later, she was standing barefoot in the kitchen, firing up her percolator, her hair twisted up in a rough ponytail. Her only concession to Booth was to put on a pair of sleep shorts so that she wouldn't be padding around in her over-sized shirt and panties. She leaned on her elbows against the counter, haphazard thoughts swirling in her mind. She was never one for psychology, but even she could admit that there was a deep-seated connection between the maelstrom of unfamiliar emotions running through her these past few weeks, and the disturbing sequence of dreams that her unconscious had foisted on her. While she wasn't one to put much stock in the symbolism behind dreams, there was something about the ones tonight that made her shudder. Not since Booth was kidnapped by the Gravedigger did she have such vivid, chilling nightmares.

As if she had dreamed him up, she felt his strong arm wrap securely around her waist, his body warm from sleep as he enveloped her in a hug.

"You're here," she said.

"I'm here," he replied.

He held her for ten seconds, fifteen, twenty. Beginnings and endings, she thought, wrapped around each other like an ouroborous. Everything comes full circle. Finally, she took a deep, shuddering breath, and gently disentangled herself from his embrace. He was wearing jeans and his leather jacket, his hair still sticking up every which way. She looked down at his feet - for some odd reason, it brought a smile to her face when she saw that he was still wearing a pair of red-white-purple striped socks and his bedroom slippers. "Booth," she ventured. "You're not wearing shoes."

He looked down at his feet, as though noticing for the first time his attire. "Er... I have a pair in the SUV. Plus this pair keeps my toes toasty warm." He gave her the patented Booth grin - half-teasing, half-amused, almost masking the care and concern he had for his partner. His _everything_, if it came down to that.

"I have coffee," she said, reaching up on her toes to the overhead cabinet and pulling down two ceramic mugs.

"Thanks, Bones."

Silently, they moved around each other in her kitchen: he assisted her in locating the creamer and sugar, and piled both mugs on a small wooden tray and brought them to the living room. Following her lead, he took note of her sleepwear - a black T-shirt that did nothing to hide her figure, the edge of pale pink sleep shorts peeking out from underneath the hem. She rarely allowed him to see her like this, and he savored the bond of trust that still seemed to exist between them, even though his gamble had failed.

They tucked themselves on opposite ends of her couch. She looked at him in askance, her blue eyes pale in the lamplight. _Sit beside me_, she seemed to say. She was leaning against the armrest of the couch, her legs folded underneath her, her coffee mug cradled in her hands. He took a sip of his, allowing the strong flavor to work its way through his system. He needed to be awake for this. "You want to tell me about your dream?"

She sighed. "It's starting again."

"What's starting again?"

She took a deep breath. "After the Gravedigger took Hodgins and myself, I kept on having these dreams. Dreams of being buried alive - in coffins, in the car, the beer vat, even a tanker truck - and it was getting progressively worse and worse. I... scheduled some sessions with Dr. Wyatt in an effort to handle them and to return to a normal sleep cycle."

"You hate psychology, Bones."

"And I maintain that it's a soft science. However, I respected Dr. Wyatt's expertise and his candor, and he assisted me in confronting these nightmares. Within a few weeks after our regular sessions, the dreams lessened, and he deemed me fit enough to work through it on my own."

He edged closer to her. "I wish you'd told me, Bones."

She nibbled on her bottom lip - a habit he'd noticed she would do whenever she was nervous. "I... I didn't want you to perceive me as weak, Booth. I know, now, that it's not weakness to confide in one's friend feelings of fear and inadequacy, but during that time, I was very much afraid that you would stop taking me out on the field if I was unable to compartmentalize properly." Brennan tilted her head and looked at him sadly. "Plus, what would you do? You couldn't very well rescue me from inside my own head."

"But I would've stayed with you, you know. Reassured you. Helped you get past it."

"It was something I felt I needed to do on my own. Overcoming my demons, so to speak." She took a drink of her coffee, then set it down on the small side table beside her. "The dreams started again... those two weeks I thought you were dead."

"Oh Bones." He shifted towards her, until his arm was resting on the back of the couch, his fingers brushing against her shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

She brushed away his apology with a wave of her hand. "At that time, I wasn't sure why I reacted so strongly - and perhaps that was when I realized that I cared about you more than what was normal for partners. Granted, I'm not sure how much of it was because I thought you were gone, and how much of it was because I couldn't properly mourn you. But I kept on dreaming about you - about all that blood between my fingers, and..." Her voice hitched, and she lowered her head, unable to continue.

"Oh, baby." It slipped from his lips effortlessly as he gathered her up in his arms and pulled her to his chest. She was small, curled up in his arms like a fragile bird, a delicate sculpture made of bone and blood and heart, and Booth could feel her shuddering in his arms, shaking with silent tears. He stroked her back gently. murmuring nonsense words of endearment in her ear.

"I'm so scared of losing you."

"I'm not going anywhere, Bones."

"But you are. I told you to move on." Her voice hitched at the words. "I don't want you to leave me."

"I'm never going to leave you, baby, shhhh." He pressed a soft kiss on top of her head. "Don't cry, Bones, I'm here."

"But I saw you," she babbled, a fresh wave of tears spilling from her eyes, "you were dancing with a beautiful blond woman, and she was taking you away from me, and - "

"Shhhh." His heart was breaking for his partner, his love, his Bones. "There aren't any blond bimbos trying to take me away from you. I'm hooked on you, Bones. I can't leave you, even if I tried."

"You'd leave me. Someday, you'll realize I'm holding you back from what you want."

"As cliche as it may sound, all I want is you."

"You don't want me."

"if I didn't want you, Bones, I wouldn't be here with you."

She looked up at him, her cheeks tear-stained, her eyes a watery blue. "I don't have your open heart, Booth."

Patterns. Patterns swirling, repeating, continuing on. What was it that she had said? He must be insane if he thought that this would work. She'd already said no. What made him think that she would say yes this time around?

"Bones," he said, choosing his words carefully. "You are the most open-hearted person I know. You give yourself completely to everything you do. Nobody else I know would present themselves as the prime suspect just to save their father from jail; not everyone else will drive to the desert just because their best friend asked them to. You are better than what you think you are, Temperance. Believe me when I tell you that you are the best kind of person there is, and that I love you. All right? Understand that I love you because of the person that you are right now, and the person you will be in the future."

His heart thudded in his chest. _Love_. There it was, out in the open, for the world to see. He loves her - no conditions necessary, no caveats or disclaimers appended to the statement.

She tucked her head in the curve where his neck and shoulders met. "Sleep with me, Booth," she whispered.

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**A/N: So far, so good? Ready for the next part? then go and clicky-click the review button and let me know what you think. :) I'd love to hear your thoughts!**


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